Month: March 2017

As we enter the last stage of March Madness (a crazy basketball tournament of 68 college teams competing for the ultimate prize), I was thinking about the amount of data that it generates and how sports management faces a tremendous opportunity to capitalize on data. Whether you’re the head of ticket sales, planning yearly promotional giveaways, or gearing up for the halftime show, you know improving yearly sales is a difficult task. The professional sports industry drove $17.84 billion in gate revenues in North America in 2015 alone. Total revenue sources come from several categories and differ depending on the sport and…

It’s time to take analytics seriously! That might sound strange – after all, analytics has been at the top of Gartner’s CIO technology priorities for decades. But despite that, analytics is still too often treated as an afterthought, as something used to track the effectiveness of business processes, or as a set of tools for making pretty visualizations and telling “data stories.” It’s time to change that perception. In an era of digital transformation, analytics is now the most important business process in our organizations – and it’s time for us to…

For everything from insurance to supply chain management, blockchain technology promises to upend traditional business practices – sometimes in the most surprising ways. Even the modern marketer will not be spared from the blockchain revolution. On a recent episode of Internet talk radio show Coffee Break with Game-Changers, presented by SAP, a panel of three leading industry experts discussed the potential for blockchain technology to disrupt marketing. During the show, titled Blockchain Technology: Turning Marketing on its Head, host Bonnie D. Graham moderated an energized, technology-focused discussion that revolved around…

Most companies recognize that they have opportunities through data analytics to raise productivity, improve decision making, and gain competitive advantage. Unfortunately, the majority of initiatives fail to move beyond the experimental stage, or analytic insights are not operationalized back into the business as intended. The causes range from inaccessibility to siloed data, time invested in continually gathering the data before performing analytics, and long lead times for resources from IT. Recently, Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) reviewed Dell EMC Analytic Insights Module, which is engineered to smooth out these friction points in…

The history of 3D printing started 30 years ago with Chuck Hull, the Thomas Edison of the 3D printing industry, who introduced the first 3D printer. Since then, 3D printing (also known as additive manufacturing) has been used to create everything from food and other consumer goods to automotive and airplane parts. Key drivers of adoption The tremendous growth of 3D printing has been driven by three key factors. First, the cost is rapidly decreasing due to lower raw material costs, stronger competitive pressures, and technological advancements. Second, printing speeds are increasing. For example, last year,…

I love the Strata + Hadoop World Conference (renamed Strata Data Conference) and once again the 2017 conference did not fail me in anyway. I wanted to take this opportunity to give you a quick recap since I had the privilege of attending. I love how the keynotes are short and impactful. Wednesday delivered great insight from a conversation with Beau Cronin and Phil Keslin, CTO and Founder of Niantic. Another great session was from Rajiv Maheswaran from Second Spectrum. Niantic created Pokeman Go and some of the great insight that Phil brought…

The global population is projected to reach 10 billion people by 2050. Chronic diseases are rising: 73% of all deaths are expected to result from chronic diseases by 2020. Populations are aging: the number of people aged 60 years and older will rise from 900 million to 2 billion between 2015 and 2050; that’s a rise from 12% to 22% of the total global population. In this new era of digital connection, patients are transitioning from passive healthcare recipients to active value-seeking consumers. Clearly, the world is changing. And so must…

If you think of Under Armour as just a sports apparel company, think again. Starting in 2013, Under Armour acquired MapMyFitness, followed by the addition of EndoMondo and MyFitnessPal and the launch of UA Record, making Under Armour Connected Fitness the largest digital fitness community in the world. “When we started it was very much about the product. It was about the shirts and shoes. Now it’s much more about the digital product,” said Kurt Kendall, VP analytics and data solutions at Under Armour, during his presentation at Retail’s BIG…

The data analytics journey begins with an understanding of use cases and solutions that can help an organization unlock the value of its data. This is the focus of two new Dell EMC resources. In the course of my work with the Dell EMC data analytics program, I often talk with customers who are focused on extracting value from enormous amounts of data. That was certainly the case at the recent Strata + Hadoop World conference in San Jose. The conference center was filled with people looking for innovative…

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at how in-memory computing affects live product innovation. In Part 2, we explore the impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data on smart connected products. In Part 3, we’ll approach the topic from the perspective of process industries. Live engineering? Live product innovation? Live R&D? To some people, these concepts sound implausible. When you talk about individualized product launches with lifecycles of days or weeks, people in industries like aerospace and defense (A&D) look askance. But today, most industries—not just…